Ode to Winter

Winter, you suck.

Photo by Valentin B. Kremer on Unsplash

First, you are cold. It is impossible to dress in you. Put on heavy jeans and and two shirts and a sweatshirt and heavy socks because the hallways are cold...But then the coat doesn’t fit. Take off the sweatshirt, pack it in a grocery bag along with the real shoes, put the coat back on. Add gloves and a scarf? Can’t add a hat because hat head is really not a good thing when your hair is the only thing that makes you not look dead in January. Put the boots on, even though bending over in these jeans squeezes your kidneys like a sausage and now you have to pee.

Open the door and feel your nose hairs freeze. Skate across the frozen puddle of dog pee right outside the door because he ain’t going out in that, no way. Waddle out to the car. Turn it on. Listen to the grating sound of the wipers on the icy windshield while you find the scraper. Scrape the windows (try not to scrape the car) and live with the fact that you just woke your octogenarian neighbor up and it’s still dark outside.

Because, second of all, winter, (you asshole), you are so freakin’ dark. Like, unnecessarily dark. Needlessly dark. Redundantly dark. The entire state trudges through all the months of standard time because of our collective seasonal affective disorder. We have a drinking problem and we eat far too many potatoes and I blame this all on you. Sure, some people pretend to like to ski, but they live above my pay grade. I do not do “the winter sport,” unless drinking more stouts and porters counts as sport (it really should); the Y smells like chlorinated Brussels sprouts this time of year, but I drag my bloated potato body there and hoist myself onto a treadmill and sadly, mournfully jog because it is too dark outside to brave the ice and the oncoming traffic.

Not only is the ground frozen and our hopes and dreams and hair and skin shriveled beyond rehydration, but the produce has also given up pretending. The strawberries are pale. The grapes are depressed. The apples are losing their luster. The cucumbers are barely erect. The root vegetables are beginning to look like the backs of my middle-aged hands. The oranges taunt me with their Florida glow, but there will be seeds and too much pulp mocking me if I dare to momentarily dream of vitamin C from natural sources.

Winter, you are cold and grey. You are grits with no cheese or salt. You are oatmeal with no sugar. You are porridge with no butter. You are instant mashed potatoes with no milk. You are comfort foods stripped of their comfort. You are miserable and I am miserable and I am not leaving my couch again until the sun breaks through the clouds and Daylight Saving Time rescues all of us from our ennui and pending morbid obesity.

Somebody bring me a porter.